Soft tissue and skin (hereinafter collectively “soft tissue” or “tissue”) are in high demand for grafting purposes. Unfortunately, soft tissue is difficult to process and sterilize properly using conventional methods for several reasons.
First, conventional soft tissue processing methods are complex, expensive, labor-intensive, and time-consuming, because the methods typically require the gradual application of a multitude of chemicals and reagents in a number of processing chambers.
Second, some conventional methods stress and distort the tissue, such that the tissue no longer retains its desired biological and biochemical properties, by virtue of the multiple applications of chemicals and reagents, as well as the repeated handling and transferring of the tissue from one processing chamber to the next. Such stress and distortion of the tissue can make the tissue unmanageable and unacceptable for graft purposes.
Third, even with the gradual application of chemicals and reagents, some conventional methods do not penetrate the tissue enough to destroy, lyse, or eliminate contaminants, such as donor cells, donor blood, viruses, bacteria, spores, fungi, and the like. If the tissue is not successfully penetrated and processed to eliminate such contaminants, this can result in dangerous transfers of unwanted, sometimes fatal, viral, bacterial, and infectious diseases, such as HIV and hepatitis, from the donor to the host. Also, if the donor's cells and blood inadvertently remain on the tissue, then upon implantation of the tissue into the host, the host's body will likely mount an immunogenic response to the contaminated tissue and may reject the tissue.